#weird factor of 7/10

[misshollowayss]

so i just watched hm in its whole entirety bc the bf and i are trying to get into the paul and emma headspace for writing ( him paul / me emma ) and all i have to say is wtf did i watch??? with: @strlitetheatre

[pseudospectre]

Sent an application for a kitten on Petfinder tonight. I'm irrationally scared they'll reject me for some reason :/ but Selkie needs a buddy and I've been scrolling looking for a little face that calls to me. And she does. So I hope I hope!

[koshercosplay]

alrighty folks buckle up for the fifth year of menorabilia ratings! I've scoured the internet (and my eyeballs) so get ready for the best and worst chanukah merchandise of the year

okay first I just need to get these fuckin gnomes out of the way. ideally permanently. this guy's hat has so much going on I don't know where to begin. the menorah? not kosher. also wrong. the dreidels? certainly have,,, something written on them. everyone knows reindeer love chanukah, the lighting fires holiday. 5/10 at least it's got SOMEWHAT of a cuteness factor

turning old CDs into fake sufganiyot is certainly creative bc that's the only explanation for those monstrosities that I'll accept. please don't spin your spontaneous combustion menorahs on top of your dreidels. it won't bring the next season any faster. 4/10 I'll put up with a lot if you're offering to pay for my netflix account

they are Setting That Torah On Fire. is that why there's an oil jug next to a candle menorah. 6/10 the פ instead of a ש‎ on the dreidel is because the miracle is just the torah not bursting into flames

this really puts the messy in messianic. it's got the wrong amount of branches. why is the shamash just two stacked cups. the cross looks like an airplane. oh god it also has the jesus fish. -76162802492/10 never knew a single image could contain so much No.

some of these menorahs are kosher and some are not which really spices things up. what a fun little game of I spy for me. I enjoy the addition of various happy animals celebrating chanukah but were the santa hats really necessary? 7/10 that bottom dreidel has two נ‎s. none dreidel with left coins.

I can acknowledge that it's an attempt to jewish-ize a christmas thing but tinsel is, unfortunately, occasionally, pretty. weird choice to have all the menorahs have נ‎s but sure. what's that? those are dreidels? wrong. take a look at the helpful next image of this item.

do you see it yet? here let me help.

clearly those are menorahs. we light them on fire and spin them as fast as we can. first one to die loses. 5/10 google is your friend

move over fiddler on the roof chassidim with bottle balancing skills, here come some cats with impressive candle dexterity. this may not be a kosher menorah but their TAILS are the BRANCHES. 7/10 I am easily won over by the presence of cats okay

canon jewish representation, a spinning dreidel, a kosher menorah, some chocolate gelt, and they're eating fresh latkes. I needed these yesterday. 10/10 rugrats my beloved never lets me down

(previous years 1, 2, 3, 4)

[ladycrimsonandblack]

rating the white star's battles based on how embarrassing they were for him personally

because he deserves it.

his first appearance in the mogoru empire: 1/10 — by far his least embarrassing battle. he manages to come off as extremely powerful and menacing final boss. cryptic remarks about choi han and cale's situation make him look mysterious. our heroes put their everything into this battle and just barely manage to come out of it alive. cale faints for weeks afterward.

battle at the castle of light: 7/10 — starts out pretty well for him when he traps our heroes in the castle, but goes downhill from there. he just gets tricked so easily. cale and co. have a blast pretending to be weak to throw him off, ambushing him, and then chasing him off with rocks. embarrassingly, all of this is facilitated by the fact that the white star does not, in fact, know all the entrances to his home village.

battle at the north: 6/10 — the white star just keeps getting scammed. when will he learn? gets some points for his excellent showing against witira and the whale king. loses all of them because archie was allowed to talk.

battle at the dubori territory: 4/10 — the white star actually had a pretty good showing here. managed to trip cale with his illusionist. dealt pretty well with choi han and eruhaben, even if they managed to get out of danger. did some heavy damage to the territory itself. he did lose an arm (both metaphorical and physical one), so there's that.

battle of the underground city: 5/10 — immediately realizes the city is fake and that the whole thing is a trap, thus disrupting cale's plans. however, any points he might have gotten are immediately made void by the fact that he starts constructing an elaborate history between cale and himself to justify his previous losses. his ego can't take it anymore. he's retreating to the AU land.

the battle at the stan territory: 6/10 — this should have been a win for him. he's prepared for everything. the battle is going on at four fronts, and cale henituse can't react in time. unfortunately for him, his plans are shit and cale can, in fact, react in time. actually, he can react so fast that he manages to mitigate the situation in all four battles and reinforce the stan territory. the white star is, once again, forced to flee, but not before informing everyone around about his weird AU land belief, thus making cale's reputation soar. embarrassing.

the battle to steal cale's body: 7/10 — the white star is forced to contend with alberu, who brought a gun to a knife fight. it does not go well for him. also, they really shouldn't have underestimated mary.

the battle at puzzle city: 20/10 — there are literally no good points here. his disguise is seen through pretty easily. he gets trapped by the mana disturbance tools. cale hits him with a mental attack so devastating that his ego can't take it, and he gets himself sealed. the bitch-slap happens, and it's glorious. at least he gets sealed into a golden plaque, so at least he gets some dignity there.

the battle in the sealed temple: 10/10 — he gets killed by a stick. the only thing mitigating the embarrassment factor here is that cale had to stab himself in the heart first, and that adds a certain oomph the white star himself has never been able to accomplish.

+ special mention

the battle in the wrath test: 15/10 — he gets beaten by a rock. like. it's literally a pebble. sure, it's a magical pebble, but still. a pebble.

[tvlandofficiall]

Wait elaborate on the “rudy dies on the weird route but not the normal route” idea please

i'll do my best! i think there are a few factors in how rudy as a character is written that contribute to this for me, so i'll try to break them down as best as i can.

to start; rudy's sickness is written as too out-of-focus to make me believe it will have an impact as significant as him dying from it on the normal route. it's a bit like the way kris and susie's school project is written about; rudy mentions that the hospital staff ran "some tests" and found "some things", but there's no sense of specificity to it that would make it stand out as something to be focused on. how sick is he? how concerned are the townspeople aside from noelle? when we hear about asgore's feelings on the matter, the focus is not on rudy being sick but on the budding romantic feelings asgore has for him. the pill bottles that were originally going to be in noelle's dark world room didn't make it into the final game. there's not a sense of some intentional mystery afoot like there is with ie; dess.

additionally, there's another way that rudy is framed that makes me think his death on a normal route is unlikely. rudy is a character with both a unique text sound and a portrait. right now, though, you could play through the entire game and never see him. for him to die, we'd both need (and have to account for, given those signifiers of importance) time to be able to get to know him such that we'd be affected when he died. think of how i mentioned that the weird route is framed such that you're expected to have played the normal route beforehand — berdly's death is impactful because of that "oh my god, you can kill berdly" feeling, and the idea of breaking the game to kill an otherwise relevant character is very baked in to what makes it hit. given rudy's bedbound status means he'll likely be absent from ch3, the soonest we could see rudy in a berdly-like role is ch4 — over halfway through the game. we'd only have ch5, 6, and 7 left to explore the effects of him dying at that point, and by that point those effects — noelle's grief, the dreemurr family's schism, ect. — would feel more concisely explored via dess rather than splitting the screentime between discussing her and discussing rudy. there are other plot points that'd take precedence there, too, like the darkners' and kris' fates, that rudy's death wouldn't really be relevant to. if noelle were the protagonist of the game, i could see her being driven to dig deeper into the dark world and harness its magic by rudy's death. but noelle is a supporting cast member, and so i don't think i can quite as easily see that being worked in without it coming to feel a bit like a revolving door of a plot.

but why is rudy sick, then? i feel there are a few reasons. first of all, on the normal route, rudy's sickness functions the same as mayor holiday being an absent mother, spades king being an abusive father, ralsei being spawned in with no parents to speak of, susie having what's implied to be a troubled home life at best, and kris being a child of divorce. all of our protagonists and deuteragonists are isolated kids, outcasts, ect. and rudy being hospitalized drives home noelle's particular isolation — as aforementioned, mayor holiday is an absent mother. kris and noelle's feelings towards one another are only 10 HP higher than kris' feelings towards ralsei. and rudy can only see her when she has the time to come and visit him in the hospital. like the school project, his sickness is there to set up something else in the story.

and second of all — rudy does have a lot of death flags. we know for a fact that undertale's rudy isn't around anymore. i think a lot of players are going in expecting rudy will die — i often see the sentiment expressed "there's no way rudy's going to make it!" when someone talks about him. and deltarune is a game that's deliberately playing on those audience expectations quite a bit, both of the characters' undertale counterparts and of the archetypes they embody. that "there's no way!' feeling is being evoked on purpose.

those death flags aren't just there to trick you. you may remember me discussing how the weird route shapes the game into a "noelle route", and how it seems like we're deliberately trying to isolate noelle such that we can control her. we've removed one person noelle feels she can say no to already — kris. we sever noelle from the moments she gets in the normal route to grow closer to them, as well as berdly, queen, and susie. (of course, susie manages to slip through through the cracks and get a moment alone with noelle, but we do still deliberately try to shove her out of the way. see; ferris wheel poster dialogue.) but who is the one other person noelle feels she can say no to? who might we see as another obstacle? who might cause us to wonder "wait a second, wasn't that guy supposed to die? should i backtrack and see if there's something i missed?" and on what route — in both this game and undertale — do sudden and abrupt character deaths serve the story that's being told rather than feel out of place?

[devilscreekballad]

It's here, it's here. The long awaited Chapter 7 is here.

After the MC got knocked out at the end of ch6 they awake back at the hotel, with Charlie telling them of the rescue mission to get them back. And that an old friend of Lynwood's has joined them, albeit just temporarily. Or maybe he's meant to stay? Also there's a cat.

Play it HERE

-

Updates & Changes (Version 7.0; 10/12/2024)

Added Chapter 7

Added Interlude Chapters from Charlie, Mrs. Meadow's and Lynwood's perspective (Lynwood's is atm incomplete and will be added with the ch8 update)

Updated skintone options

Added option for whether MC swears

Added options to not reveal if you're trans/under the umbrella

Added options to say if you bind/pad your chest or if you are flat-chested

Various bug and prose fixes.

Total Wordcount of this update (with code) 46725 words, bringing the overall wordcount (according to twine) to ~219000 (not counting unused/notes passages).

Can't give an average, sorry, but might very well be around 100k per playthrough now.

Note:

With this update the Choicescript version is on ice, though if there's ever a change to how CoG handles publishing (and if CS gets expanded array usage), who knows what the future holds for a more mobile and screenreader friendly version of Ballad.

For those new to the game:

The West is Wild and the West is Weird. A new century is around the corner, and you are an outlaw traversing the towns and terrains of the Frontier, only to one evening get wrapped up in chasing down the means to stop a doomsday cult from bringing forth the end of days. You’ll face hustlers, grifters, gunslingers and vengeful brides as you make your way to the ghost town of Devil’s Creek to find answers, and hopefully get out of there alive.

What can you play as?

Ballad allows you to set your a broad variety of factor besides gender and age, all which will have a variety of impacts on the story.

Who can you romance?

Right now there are six possible ROs, with more going to be added later:

Charlie, your best friend and partner in crime

Seán and Tommy, and odd couple of outlaws happenstance put into your little posse (they can only be romanced together)

Lynwood, a Pinkerton Agent on Seán's trail

Mrs. Meadows, widow, sharp-shooter and doctor there to make sure you'll uphold your end of the deal

Isaac, former colleague of Lynwood's picking up the trail of a cold case

As this is a Weird West game, some Warnings do apply:

Death

Blood

Violence

Swearing

Alcohol

Smoking

Mindsets and Vocabulary of the late 19th century North America/Europe

Mentions/Discussions of

Sexual Violence/Abuse

Spousal/Parental Abuse

Racism, Sexism, other forms of bigotry

Miscarriage

Infertility

Murder

Animal Death/Animal abuse

Guns

Spiritism

Mediumship

Ghosts

Supernatural events

Capitalism

Pinkertons

Like what you're seeing?

You can support the author on Pat or Ko.

~+~

But now, have fun with the game.

Stay safe, stay hydrated, stay weird. <3

[kcrossvine-art]

Hey folks! Itsssssssssssss timeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee for another dungeon meshi cooking time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isnt that neat.

Its weird to think how long its gonna be before season 2 of the anime drops. Anyway go read the manga i promise you wont regret it. This ones from senshis lil garden on legs-

Today we'll be making Golem Field Fresh Veggie Lunch!

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to Golem Field Fresh Veggie Lunch?” YOU MIGHT ASKIts vegetables, vegetable wauter, and not Much else! Knife is there too.

Head of cabbage

4 carrots

3 potatoes

2 onions

2 turnips

Thick slice bacon

Butter

Seasoned rice vinegar

I lied theres pork did you fall for it did u catch it.

AND, “what does Golem Field Fresh Veggie Lunch taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASKSon, have you ever eaten a vegetabel

Broth is surprisingly flavorful considering the limited spices and short cooktime

Potatoes are perfect texture for dipping

Cabbage absorbed a lot of the juices!!!

Was more impressed by the salad part of the meal-

The turnips need to be sliced enough to Barely see through, and the carrots julienned thin enough to be almost peels

And its this wonderful vegetable confetti tasteful in its simple pleasure

Rice vinegar of any kind will work, seasoned rice vinegar is just what i had

Salt both parts of the meal generously

In the future i wouldve shredded or cut the cabbage much smaller. We'll talk more on that later. Its also intentionally barebones with spices and oils, me using butter and rice vinegar is even pushing the limits of show accurate because in the show they used plain olive oil.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From idea to execution, this was a very quick recipe. For starters, nothing gets cooked all that long (the water spends more time empty than it does ingredient'ed) and for lasters nothing gets cut all that much. It was tricky finding good sources for stewing a whole cabbage because most recipes call for either shredding or at least chopping smaller. And they do this for a reason. Its unwieldy trying to eat a whole half of cabbage, you never quite know when to start or where to start. Do you bite chunks out? Peel leaves? Spear it with other things? I dont know. I still dont. Im not a huge raw cabbage fan and it wasnt raw, but it wasnt transformed much either. Minimalist. 

This was a feast in the show and i bet that the freshness of the veggies were a factor, considering they were plucked fresh off the living rock guys. I wouldve killed to be able to brown the onions, roast the carrots, or maybe cube the potatoes (though the consistency was perfect for forking and dipping them in butter so! Bonuses.)

Oven roast bacon is a beloved treet for me. It seemed to absorb some of the vegetable broth and vice versa with the broth absorbing the oils from the bacon, which enhanced all the flavors. Maybe in the future itd be nice to try cooking the bacon a bit ahead, and then adding it to the pot while everythings boiling? Also adding a spritz of lemon juice to either/both is always nice!

I give this recipe a solid 7/10 (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) for its simplicity. With modifications like shredding the cabbage and more seasonings, it could become an easy 10/10. hit that like and subscribe or kill me

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Ingredients:

Head of cabbage

4 carrots

3 russet potatoe

2 white onions

2 turnips

10 slices of thick slice bacon

Butter

Seasoned Rice vinegar

Stew Method:

Preheat your oven to 400f. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and place a baking rack on top (alternatively you can use a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and no baking rack. but the baking rack lets the air circulate better and the grease drip off!)

Cook your bacon for about 18 minutes or until crisp. Flip halfway through.

Chop your carrots, peel and slice your potatos in half, and slice your onions into rings.

Get a large pot with a tight fitting lid, add water, salt, your carrots, your potato pieces, and your onions. Cover and heat to a low boil.

Cut the cabbage head in half down the middle. Once the pot is boiling, carefully add your cabbage to the pot and arrange the halves so theyre fully covered.

Cover and cook for about 13 minutes, the cabbage should be slightly crisp but have give to them. 

Remove from heat and laddle contents into a bowl, arrange some of your bacon along the sides so the fat and the broth mix :) salt and pepper to taste. And get a little saucer for butter so you can dip the potato pieces and/or coat the cabbage pieces.

Salad Method:

Peel your carrots and turnips. Cut off the ends of both. Julienne your carrots, and thinly slice your turnips.

Add your carrot greens (or your chosen leaf filler) to a bowl, then add your carrots and turnips.

Coat with seasoned rice vinegar, salt, and pepper. Thoroughly mix and enjoy :) 

[ghostly-bat]

I haven't been searching actively ships outside ao3 and I saw that apparently people hate Jondami? I was confused honestly because in one timeline Jon became older and I avoid that timeline but wasn't he lost on space ? So mentally he didn't have any interactions with people& also the shipping is when they are both adults . Like we say they are cute when they are kids& are like when they get above 18 I would ship them as pair (best friends to lovers etc). I honestly have seen DC making worse things Canon in some timelines (like I have seen batgirlx batman ,I think Jason slept with Talia in one , I have seen some panels with Dick and Catwoman) ,also I kind of think that Jay and Jon is worse ? Like we take a person that was lost in space with no one to interact and mentally and his experience stop at 10 and throw him on university & a relationship with a 18 year old ? Like if he wasn't lost in space that ship would never happen & if I say I don't want to accept the aging of Jon is not only for damijon to work but for him and his family. Like imagine having a 10 year old kid that goes missing for 2 weeks and then this stranger shows up or Jon wishing to go back to his family and then only he has changed no one else had changed ,only him ,so no I don't like that idea at all

Oh yeah, there are definitely people out there that the view the ship as very problematic because Jon is older in current canon and that in itself sucks in general but shipping hate has been around for years and it's never going to stop. I just ignore and move on cus I just don't care lol. I personally haven't come across any hate and haven't gotten any hate for it. Also it's a three year age difference it's not that scandalous. There's a really good fic by poisonivory called Hurry Up Don't Take So Long that plays into that age difference and it is written very beautifully and very realistically in my opinion.

But here's the thing, DC canon is already so convoluted and so very weird, so if people wanna age up Jon and Damian or keep them the same age and ignore canon they have ever right to do that.

In my head, in my own little universe Jon either never went to space, or he did but the age up never happened, or he at least came back a year or two older than Damian. Now if I want angst I could easily keep the fact that Jon did a age up play into that for the angst factor of the ship. You can do so many things with it and that's the point of aus.

And I completely agree with you and I think a lot of other people agree too that Jon coming back from space like he didn't deal with any drama is very odd cus he really shouldn't be okay, and the fact that they did just throw him into college and put him in a relationship almost immediately is kind of crazy like dude, maybe you want to take some time and sort out the fact that you basically lost your entire childhood and you're never gonna get those normal child and teenage years back. I think it's crazy that DC chooses to ignore it and not play into it because we've seen that they can do that, we've seen that with Damian himself and his own internal struggles so it's a little frustrating that they're choosing to not give Jon that same depth.

Cus he was lost in space, he was there for like 6, 7 years, 10 years old, not knowing if he's ever gonna see his friends and family again only for him to come back like that didn't affect him??? No, that should definitely affect him.

[palettepainter]

ZOOT COUSINS DOODLE DUMP!! Lazer and Penny themed!! Sorry this one took a while, I ended up coming up with some awesome ideas on the Muppet server I'm on thanks to the help of my friends so it took me a bit to decide which doodles to post now and what to develop later

Brief lil notes on each drawing

1)Before he perused music and eventually became a DJ Lazer had a part time job working in a hair dressers his father frequented. Lazer thought about perusing it as a permanent career, but ultimately his heart was set on loud, heavy music. He helped Zephyr and Liv dye their hair when they expressed interest in trying it out

2-3)the twins as kids. Gavin (aka Lazer) has always been the more extroverted and outgoing of the two, with Penny pre her transition being the more withdrawn, quiet and antisocial one. Naturally this made Penny a target for bullying at school, which lead to Lazer getting into scuffles with classmates when standing up for her.

This was a factor that lead to Penny becoming so blunt and honest with her opinions after her transition, gaining the confidence to speak out when she sees something that she believes or is wrong, and why it is Lazer and her - despite their differences - are as close as they are

4-7) The twins's dad Carlos became close friends with Tina before his career as a presenter took off and before he became a farther, which meant that the twins would often be dragged along on trips to New Orleans when Carlos was in town visiting, which meant they were kind of forced to hang out with Teeth from an early age. Lazer and Teeth didn't become friends until later down the line when the two had started to flourish in their music careers (as a teen Teeth found Lazer to be a bit overbearing for his shyer self), but him and Penny became surprisingly understanding of each other. As teens both Teeth and Penny struggled to talk with their parents about certain things (Teeth for his dreams about music and Penny being in the closest about being trans), so overtime grew to become better at talking to each other and being their to support the other

After Penny's transition she was very nervous to see Teeth again after so long, especially given how much she had changed since they were kids. But it didn't take long for the two to hit it off as though nothing had changed and no time had passed! To this day Penny thinks of Teeth as one of her closest friends outside of family

8)Doodles of the goobers. I love Doddie's hair, drawing it all flowy is fun! Also I had an urge to draw her in Yor's iconic red jumper from Spy Family. I feel like it'd suit her! Lazer loves his pretty girlfriend very much

Doddie belongs to @posies-and-bundles

9-10) Lazer is a dad!! During the rise in his career when he began to properly grow in popularity, Lazer was getting stressed and burnt out from the workload. He had heard pets had calming affects on anxiety and stress, so brought what he believed was a kitten...turns out no, he hadn't brought a kitten. When Dubz kept growing, and especially when she sprouted wings one random day, Lazer discovered that Dubz wasn't just an ordinary pet and was more likely some weird creature like Animal. Que his panicked realisation of sudden parenthood:

"Welp guess this kid is my responsibility....oh my god- this kid is MY responsibility!!-"

Despite his panic and stress, the restless nights and anxiety, Lazer quickly grows attached to his weird little hairy baby and vice versa. He sought out support from Penny and Floyd (he and Floyd became good friends as kids), the latter of whom offered some pretty good advice for handling bizarre baby creatures, and Lazer later named her Dubz. Penny insisted she needed an actual name, so Lazer then changed it to Dubstep Gabrielle Hernandez. He wuvs his daughter so much he's such a girl dad, he takes Dubz to the shack often so Dubz can have playdates with Lottie

[cogentranting]

Ranking Animated Horse Designs Take 3

This time I really am back by popular demand because the other two posts have been getting a steady trickle of notes for over a year now.

(If you're looking for stuff like Disney and Dreamworks there are two other posts. Here we've got mostly random cartoons and also the Pokemon horses)

Starlite (Rainbow Brite) 6/10 Little weird that he seems to be drawn in a style that's like 3x more realistic than any other character in this show but hey sometimes you just ascend to a higher plane of existence. (2014 Reboot Starlite gets a 3/10. I do not trust him.)

Skydancer (Rainbow Brite) 7/10 I bumped Starlite down a point because he wants what Skydancer has. Skydancer doesn't need rainbows to fly. Skydancer has a lightning bolt. Skydancer has the Drama. (The one wiki page said he's a Shire or a Clydesdale and um I don't think so. Maybe a Friesian.)

On-yx (Rainbow Brite) This is a rocket powered balloon animal. 2/10

Sunriser (Rainbow Brite) 5/10 Eh. I like her hair though.

Swift Wind (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power/ She-Ra Princess of Power)

Right (older version) 8/10 I don't understand the wing physics going on here. Also not sure if the horn is part of the mask or just attached to the mask. Diggin the bib though. Also love that he's a ginger.

Left (new version) 4/10 If the older version wasn't there this would score higher because just as a character design I don't think it's bad but if these are supposed to be the same character he seems so cutesy and I do not vibe with it. I don't know either show. So maybe that works. But it feels wrong.

Amalthea (The Last Unicorn) 9/10 They gave the unicorn the split deer hooves, and the lions tail and that is automatic points from me. Bummed they didn't go all out and give us the goat's beard. Rude. Any distance shot, I love. Close-ups of the face creep me out with the giant doll eyes and tiny nose.

(Pokemon and more below)

Honey Pie Pony (Strawberry Shortcake) 8/10 Adorable. Fantastically chunky design. The others from this... show? book? brand? are like 6s or 5s depending. But Honey Pie has the It factor. (The It Factor here apparently being that recurring pattern of only the main character's horse being able to talk?? This is the third. Swift Wind, Starlite and Honey Pie have dark secrets about how they come by this knowledge).

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "ponies" Just as characters they're cute in a "trying so hard to be cute that they almost miss the mark entirely" way. But this is about how they are as HORSE designs. And these are magical gremlins not horses. 1/10 (WHAT is happening on the far right of this set. I do not approve. Zebra is fine though).

My Little Pony: A New Generation Like if the MLP: FM ponies and the Trolls characters somehow had children. Somehow the main character of Bee Movie was also involved. The one on the left makes TikTok thirst traps. -2/10

My Little Pony Tales 3/10 I can almost tell they're meant to be horses. Plus that one has a tattoo of a comb. So. Full extra point for the comb tattoo.

Bratz Horses I can't tell if there's an official video game or cartoon design for these but in ANY given version I found the conclusion is the same: if you look into the gigantic distended eye you will be put under the horse's curse. 1/10

Boxer (Animal Farm) 4/10 All horses are equal but some are more equal than others, but Boxer is not one of them because his mouth is not okay.

Marvin (Marvin the Tap Dancing Horse) 5/10 I mean. Dude's got spats. Come on.

Ponyta (Pokemon) 3/5 The armpit and middle thigh flames were a choice.

Rapidash (Pokemon) 8/10 Look at his face. The angst. He has seen things.

Mudsdale (Pokemon) 8/10 The classic mohawk, dreadlocks and legwarmers trifecta. Love it. Would love to hug him.

Galarian Ponyta 3/10 It's giving sheep, and it's giving dog. Very little horse.

Galarian Rapidash (Pokemon) 4/10 He's angry because his hair is too long and he can't walk and also he has not eaten enough somebody feed this horse.

Origin Palkia (Pokemon) 6/10 A built-in hoola-hoop AND thigh high Boots?! what fashion.

Keldeo (Pokemon) 1/10 Clown goat.

Spectrier (Pokemon) 10/10 Beautiful goth girl horse floating around like a Victorian ghost who's too modest to show her ankles.

Mudbray (Pokemon) 5/10 He has passed through the depths of existential dread and returned world-weary but unshakeable and with a snazzy bowl cut.

Glastrier (Pokemon)

20/10 ICE HORSE ICE HORSE ICE HORSE. I love him so much. He's punk rock

The Fat Horse (Looney Tunes) 10/10 Queen.

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 23) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Chapter 23

“Good news,” the doctor says, and you look up from the compound you’re mixing at your station. “Shigaraki is tolerating the procedure much better than I expected. I can only assume it’s thanks to your quirk, and because of how well he’s handling it, we can add another quirk to the mix.”

You’re not sure how you feel about that. “What about the neural load?”

“With just one more, it won’t be a problem,” the doctor says. “All For One carries many quirks, and as Shigaraki will be the next him, it’s in our interests to get him used to it.”

That phrasing is never not going to be weird to you – Tomura not as All For One’s successor, but as the next All For One. “Okay,” you say. You know already that the doctor won’t change his mind. “Which quirk?”

“You’re familiar with our collection of quirk factors, and you know Shigaraki Tomura better than I do,” the doctor says. “Why don’t you choose?”

What would be useful to Tomura? What would he want? You think about it for a moment, try to think about situations Tomura’s found himself in where the lack of a certain quirk has frustrated him. Between the League’s quirks and the collection Tomura’s already receiving from the doctor, there’s really only one gap that you can see. “Does that Nomu’s Warp quirk work on the Nomu itself?”

“Mm — yes,” the doctor for says after a moment. “All For One has used it to travel, when it was in his possession. It would make sense for the next him to have it as well.”

The next him. There’s that phrasing. Again. The doctor is frowning. “Don’t you think he’d want something flashier?”

“Decay is flashy enough,” you say. When you think of the doctor’s quirk collection, you can’t think of anything that matches Tomura’s ability to level a city with the touch of his hand. “He should have something useful. Warp is useful, and it’s not something his opponents will be able to access, even if they do have Kurogiri.”

“Yes, Kurogiri. Has your contact made any progress in figuring out where he’s being held?”

“He’s in Tartarus,” you say. “That’s where they all are.”

All For One, Moonfish, Muscular, Overhaul, and Stain. Mustard is there too, which you find appalling — he’s underage, just like Toga, and neither of them belong in maximum security under 24-hour guard. You’ve heard things about the conditions inside the prison, and they’re awful. If you needed more reasons to win the war to come, you can add Tartarus to the list — you don’t want you or anyone else to wind up inside.

The doctor nods brusquely. “When Shigaraki liberates All For One, remind him to grab Kurogiri as well, won’t you?” Then, as an afterthought: “Overhaul, too. That quirk –”

“It’s gone,” you say. “Tomura Decayed one of his arms, and Compress –”

Something clicks in your head. You take out your phone and call Compress, ignoring the doctor’s complaints. Compress answers. “Yes?”

“Do you still have Overhaul’s arm?” you ask, and the doctor’s complaining abruptly cuts off. Compress answers in the affirmative. “What condition is it in?”

“Pristine condition, given that I haven’t released it — other than that unfortunate instance with your coffee table,” Compress says. “Why?”

“Keep it like that. We might need it later,” you say. You thank Compress, hang up, and turn to the doctor again. “We have one of Overhaul’s arms, preserved at the point it was removed from his body. Will that work?”

“Yes,” the doctor says, startled.

“Good.” You’re not sure how Tomura will feel about getting Overhaul’s quirk, and that’s the least of your worries. “Won’t that be too many quirks? If we’re already adding Warp –”

“Oh, Overhaul isn’t for Shigaraki,” the doctor says. “It’s for you.”

You stare at him in horror. “You’ve been very insistent in your role as the team’s medic,” the doctor says. “With your quirk, at the moment, you’re only useful to Shigaraki. With the Overhaul quirk, you could heal your other comrades’ injuries with ease.”

He’s right. With Overhaul’s quirk you’d be beyond effective as a medic. You already have the anatomy knowledge you’d need to use it. But you don’t want any part of what Tomura’s been going through., and when the doctor looks at you, he reads it all over your face. “We’d wait until Shigaraki possesses All For One, of course,” he says. “That would make the transfer painless. And we’d transfer a copy, to avoid any personality contamination.”

“Personality contamination?” you repeat, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You’re familiar with the way that transplanted hearts carry the characteristics of their original owners. It’s the same for quirk factors,” the doctor says. “With a copied quirk, the level of influence is significantly lower. So there really is no reason for you to refuse to take on Overhaul’s quirk at all.”

Something about that pulls a thread in the background of your mind. It bothers you, but not as much as the idea of taking on Overhaul’s quirk in the first place. “That quirk killed one of our friends. The rest of the League won’t want me to have it.”

“The same quirk brought your friend back, didn't it? I’m sure you can convince them,” the doctor says. “In any case, if you’re certain that Warp will suit Shigaraki best —“

“I am.”

“We’ll begin preparing the transfer,” the doctor says. “How are the bullets coming?”

“I think I’ve fixed the problem,” you say. “I’m ready to run another test.”

“Excellent. We’ll run it now.”

When you test the bullets, you test them on clones of the doctor. It was his idea, not yours — to ensure the bullets are working, you need a quirk that switches off visibly, and the doctor’s clones aging decades in a heartbeat is as good of a tell as it gets. In your last trial run with the bullets, you shut off the quirk factor successfully, but tests confirmed that it began to repair itself almost at once. This time you’ve woven in another quirk — Petrification, which allows the user to paralyze any part of another person once they’ve touched them. The wielder, whoever they were, likely used it for full-body paralysis, but you’ve been tinkering with it, narrowing it down. You think you’ve created a compound that isolates and nullifies the victim’s quirk, and with Petrification added in, you can make the change permanent.

You think you’ve made the change permanent, and according to the tests the doctor runs on the double you just stabbed with one of the needle-tipped bullets, you’re right. “Excellent work,” the doctor says. “I would have come to this conclusion alone, obviously, but it’s much faster with two. All For One will be very pleased, even once he discovers how you lied to him.”

“I didn’t know I had a quirk.”

“I was there,” the doctor says. “You may not have lied knowingly about your quirk, but you certainly concealed the fact that you knew Shigaraki Tomura before his quirk awakened. If you had revealed that, All For One would have removed you.”

You knew that, sort of. Tomura definitely knew. “Still,” the doctor says, almost reflectively, “I suppose it worked out in the end. If All For One had removed you, he would have missed out on the benefits of your quirk.”

Your quirk benefits Tomura, not All For One. Tomura, and only Tomura. If that wasn’t the case, the doctor wouldn’t be talking about giving Overhaul’s quirk to you. The thread pulls a little tighter in the back of your mind, but the doctor cuts the thought off with an instruction before you can follow it. “Start production of the bullets. I’ll prepare Warp for transfer, and we’ll begin this afternoon. Things are moving along very nicely. After this, all that’s left is Super-Regeneration — and of course, All For One.”

The thread pulls tight, then snaps. It’s a good thing the doctor’s already left the room. If he hadn’t, the pure horror that’s rattling your entire body would have given everything away in a heartbeat.

You must be wrong. You have to be wrong. You’re desperate to be wrong — but as you pull the pieces together, you realize that the truth has been there the entire time, and it’s just as terrible as you first thought. Stolen or transferred quirks carry imprints of the original wielder’s personality. The effect can be reduced by transferring a copy, but the doctor is making sure Tomura gets the original All For One. Copies were good enough for the other quirks, but not that one. All this time, you’ve heard the way the doctor refers to Tomura and assumed that he meant to describe Tomura as All For One’s successor. But he’s never said successor, or heir. He always says it the exact same way — Tomura will be the next him.

All For One never meant for Tomura to inherit his role. He plans to transplant his original quirk to Tomura and steal Tomura’s body for himself.

The realization crashes down on you so hard that you nearly black out, but you drop your head between your knees and force yourself to breathe. Passing out won’t save Tomura. If you want to save him, you have to think. You have to make a plan. But planning right now feels like an impossibility. Doing anything feels like an impossibility, because you’re still you. Functionally quirkless. All but defenseless even with a clip of quirk-canceling bullets in your gun. Easily dismissed and easily overlooked and the last person anyone would ever suspect of doing anything to subvert Tomura’s — and theoretically All For One’s — plans.

You take slow, deep breaths, trying to slow down your thought process to match. The doctor doesn’t know what he just told you. He doesn’t know that you’ve put the pieces together, and even if he did, he wouldn’t think for a second that you’d try to stop it. After all, he’s watched you stand by as he tortured Tomura for the past three months, even allowing yourself to be pulled in to help him do it. If you didn’t blink at that, why would you blink at this? You’re loyal to Tomura’s vision, which the doctor thinks is the same vision as All For One’s. You’d never dream of crossing him.

Except you’re not loyal to All For One’s plans, or even Tomura’s plans. You told Spinner when he asked, the same way as you told yourself when you set off down this path — you’re loyal to Tomura, to Tenko, and no one else. That loyalty means you’ll cross him sometimes. It means that you’ll foil his plans if you have to. In this case, it means that you’ll stop him from receiving All For One.

Even as the thought comes to you, you know it’s impossible. You could beat the doctor in a fight, you’re pretty sure — his quirk extends his lifespan at the cost of his physical strength and speed, and when it comes to protecting Tomura, you’re basically insane — but he has Nomus on his side, and if you blow your cover and lose, it’s over. So you can’t take All For One out of the equation. Tomura will wind up with the quirk no matter what.

He’ll wind up with the quirk, but there’s no reason for him to wind up with the original. If you make sure he’s given a copy instead —

The plan clicks into place and the instant it does, the urge to enact it becomes overpowering. You grit your teeth, trying to ignore the buzzing in your limbs, the panic that floods your system with adrenaline and makes your hands shake. You can’t do anything right now. You don’t need to do anything right now. Warp is being transferred this afternoon. All For One is next, and Super-Regeneration last. You have time to figure out how to make sure the quirk factor the doctor transplants into Tomura isn’t the same one he took from Tomura’s master. In the meantime, you need to make sure the doctor doesn’t suspect you. If he suspects you, he’ll lock you out of the process in a heartbeat.

He told you to work on the bullets. You still need the bullets. You clench your hands into fists, ordering them to stop shaking, and when they don’t, you lose patience with yourself and go fumbling through one of the supply cabinets in the lab for a scalpel.

You remember promising Tenko that you’d stop — or maybe just swearing that you didn’t do it anymore — and the times he’s seen you naked since you started again have been few enough and far enough between to allow the injuries to heal. You’ll have all the time in the world for the three lines that you carve into your hip to fade, and by the time you’ve wiped the blood away and taped down a sterile pad and disposed of the scalpel at the bottom of a sharps container, you’re calm again. You know what you need to do. You won’t let this happen to Tenko. You can save him. You will.

Making the bullets is time-consuming. By the time the doctor comes back from tending to the Nomus he’s cooking up, you’ve only made three. Three, to go with the five Tomura and the others stole from Overhaul — and while you’ve been working on it, you’ve added a twist to your plan. The doctor peers over your shoulder at your progress, then goes to the window to observe Tomura. “We’ll let him rest a little longer before we transplant Warp. I’m hungry. Go and bring me some food from the cafeteria — and some for yourself as well. You look terrible.”

You’ve been hearing that a lot lately. It’s apparently a good thing your costume includes a veil. As much as it irks you to act like the doctor’s servant, you need him in a good mood, so you change into a set of scrubs and head to the cafeteria, blending in easily with the other staff members. This is the kind of place you might have worked one day, if nothing had changed, if you hadn’t found Tenko again. You were proud of working at the clinic, but you’d have been proud to work in a hospital, too. A hospital would have paid better, had better benefits, and depending on the specialty you were in, maybe better hours. The kind of things you’d have needed if you ever wanted to start a family.

You don’t think about things like that anymore. You hop in line at the cafeteria, order what the doctor likes and something you know you won’t do more than pick at, and make your way back down to the lab, willing your hands not to shake, willing your breath to stay even. You deliver the food to the doctor, and then, rather than retreat like you usually do, you sit down at the far end of his workspace. The doctor raises his eyebrows. “Can I help you?”

“Sir, I had a question for you,” you say. Sir never hurts with men of a certain age, and since you’ve used it before, the doctor won’t smell a rat to hear you use it again. “All For One — the quirk — it’s instantaneous, right? The target’s quirk is gone as soon as All For One touches them and decides to take it.”

“Yes,” the doctor says. “Why do you ask?”

“The compound in the bullets I’m making isn’t that fast,” you say. “It’s quick, but if the person who was shot acted quickly enough, they could counter-strike before their quirk was destroyed. So I was wondering if — um — I know it’s the most important quirk you have, but –”

You play up nervousness, anxiousness, a desire to please. The kind of thing the doctor expects to see from a devoted servant, one who’d die for her master. The doctor smiles kindly, or condescendingly. From him, they look the same. “You’re wondering if you can have a copy of All For One for your experiments?”

You nod. “The compound in the bullets works now, but I’d like to make it even better. I want to help Tomura as much as I can.”

The last part is true, at least. “You’ve asked nicely, and you’ve been quite diligent,” the doctor says. “Of course you can have a copy. I believe there are three or four in storage, and of course Mocha can make more if needed.”

“He remembers how?” you ask. “He’s made a lot of copies recently.”

“Of course, but you may wish to jog his memory,” the doctor says. “The original is stored in the repository, the same as the others. Show it to him and he’ll replicate it again. But do try to be judicious with your work, dear. Waste not, want not.”

“Yes, sir,” you say at once. The doctor tilts his head, studying you. “Sir? What is it?”

“You don’t look well,” he says abruptly. “At this proximity, maintaining Shigaraki’s increased healing factor shouldn’t strain you.”

“I’m not — strained,” you say at once. “Just tired. Uh — and hungry.”

“You aren’t eating.”

“I was nervous to ask you about All For One,” you confess. That’s not a lie, either. You look down at your bowl, feeling tears spring to your eyes. “I don’t want to let Tomura down. I’ve been trying as hard as I can –”

All true. “But I’m worried it won’t be good enough,” you continue. “What if it’s not enough, and something happens because of me, and he –”

“Well, you can at least be assured that you won’t live to see it,” the doctor says. “Your quirk will bleed you dry to keep him alive. But we’ll render that unnecessary all too soon. Once Super-Regeneration is transplanted and combined with the effects of your quick, Shigaraki’s transformation into the second coming of All For One will be assured.”

That’s a new phrasing. He hasn’t used that one before. For a second you wonder if you’re wrong — but then as you sniffle over your bowl of cafeteria ramen and the doctor passes you a handkerchief, you decide that it doesn’t matter if you’re wrong or right. With the course of action you’re planning to take, Tomura will get All For One’s quirk no matter what. All you’re going to do is remove any chance that he’ll get All For One’s soul along with it.

The transplantation of Warp goes as well as it could. The sound of Tomura’s screams rings in your ears almost constantly, and every time a procedure ends and you’re left to care for him before he returns to stasis, you’re terrified that he won’t forgive you for your part in it. But it’s not just that he forgives you — it’s that he doesn’t seem to blame you in the first place. “It was my idea, not yours,” he mumbles, when the words blur their way out of your mouth. “Just stay here.”

“Of course,” you say, like always. The hole in his stomach’s closed now — he can eat and drink, although the only thing you’ve been able to get him to accept is a few sips of water. He wouldn’t even drink it at first. It took you dabbing a wet cloth across his lips for him to open his mouth. “You’re almost done after this. Two more and then it’s over.”

Tomura nods. His eyes are closed. “When it’s over,” he starts, then grimaces. You raise the cup of water to his lips again and he takes it from you with a shaky hand, drains it, sets it aside. “Over here. There’s room.”

You look askance at him. “On the operating table?” There’s not room by any stretch of the imagination. “Tomura –”

He shakes his head. “Not Tomura.”

“Tenko.” You lower your voice. “Will you eat something if I sit with you?”

“Why don’t you want to –”

“I do. I just want you to eat something, too.” You study him, wondering what’s going through his head, hoping he’ll agree. After a long moment, he nods. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

You end up sitting towards the end of the operating table, Tenko’s legs propped up in your lap as he picks at a plate of food. His muscles are stiff — you could tell when he lifted his legs up to stretch them across your lap — so you massage them gently, trying to work the knots out. Tenko relaxes by degrees. “What did I get today?” he asks after a while.

“You’re doing really well, so the doctor told me to pick an extra quirk for you. I chose Warp.”

“Warp?” Tenko’s mouth curves into a smile. “Bad call. Now I can come get you whenever I want.”

“If you think I don’t want to be with you all the time, you haven’t been paying attention.” You wish you were sitting closer to him, or that the plate wasn’t in the way. You want to hold him closer than this. “You were saying something earlier, about when this is over. When it’s over, what do you want to do?”

“Win. Fast.” Tenko picks at the food you brought him. “Before that I want to do stuff. With you.”

“Like, sex stuff?” You’re having a hard time thinking of stuff the two of you haven’t already done that doesn’t start to veer into kinks. The two of you haven’t talked about kinks. “Sure. I’m not sure what kind of stuff you’re thinking about, but we can probably –”

Tenko’s kneed you lightly in the stomach. “What was that for?”

“Not sex stuff.” Tenko peels one eye open and catches the look you’re giving him. “Not just sex stuff. Other stuff. Date stuff.”

“We’ve gone on dates,” you remind him. “Two of them.”

“Those aren’t real dates,” Tenko says. Ouch. “Where we go somewhere and do something. Like a movie. Or the arcade –”

“That kind of date,” you say. Your heart sinks a little bit. “I don’t know if there’s anywhere we can do that where it would be safe.”

“The PLF has other towns. Not just the one we fought in. We can go there.” Tenko’s plate is empty. He sets it aside. “And stay there, after.”

“After the date?” you ask. Tenko shakes his head but doesn’t explain. “After — oh.”

After he wins. After the old world ends, in the new one. You’ve known Tenko was thinking about it, known that some of what you’ve said has taken hold, but aside from jokes about things he wants to ban — cats have been added to the list that already contains heroes, hate groups, and bras — he hasn’t said anything concrete about what he wants it to be like. Except this. Except that he wants to have somewhere to live, and he wants you to live there with him.

And none of that will happen if you can’t stop All For One from stealing his body. “Okay,” you say to Tenko. “We might have to go on multiple dates, then. So we can decide which one we like best. I should warn you, though — I suck at arcade games.”

“I don’t care about that.” Tenko reaches for you, catches you around the waist and pulls you awkwardly in until you’re sprawled against him. It’s not comfortable, but he’s doing his level best to get comfortable anyway. “I’m good enough for both of us.”

“I know.” You’ve believed him every time he said that, ever since you were kids. He’s promised he could do it, whatever it was, for both of you, and you’ve never doubted him. You’re not doubting him now. But at the same time, you know that what needs to happen now is something only you can do. You need to do it for both of you. “Ten?”

He’s falling asleep. His grip on you is loosening even as he tries to wrap you around him. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” you say. “You know that, right?”

He nods. “Always knew,” he mumbles. His next words are slurred, almost incomprehensible. “Same here.”

You’re still sitting with Tomura when the doctor comes back in. He takes one look at you both and rolls his eyes. “Get up. The sooner we put him into stasis, the sooner we can transplant All For One.”

The doctor usually sends you back once Tomura’s in stasis, but that can’t happen this time. You untangle yourself from Tomura’s arms carefully, giving yourself time to phrase the question. “Can I stay for a little while once he’s under?”

“This again? You already know –”

“Not to sit with him,” you interrupt as carefully as possible. “I want to work on the bullets a little more. I promise I’ll stay out of the way. I won’t get underfoot.”

“You haven’t been underfoot,” the doctor says. “A bit sentimental, perhaps, but you’ve made yourself quite useful. You can stay, but you’ll have to stay overnight. Johnny will need a break after this next trip.”

“Which trip?”

“I want you to retrieve Overhaul’s arm,” the doctor says. “While I’m sure Compress has it safely stored, it’ll be better preserved here.”

You nod. Another stupid idea is churning in the back of your mind, but you shove it away. One crazy idea at once is the most you can handle. You tell yourself that, but your mouth has different ideas. “I can preserve it once it’s here, sir. If that would help.”

“That will be very helpful indeed,” the doctor says, smiling. “If you were worried that All For One would be unforgiving of your lie, Saintess, I’d cease to worry about it. He rewards loyal service generously.”

You nod, and close your eyes as the taste of warp sludge fills your mouth. One thing at a time. One plan. One course of action. Nothing else you do will matter if you can’t use your perceived loyalty to All For One to stop him from destroying Tomura.

Spinner and Re-Destro pounce the instant you get back, but then Hawks puts in an appearance, and Spinner detours to run interference while you run to find Compress. You badly need to talk to Spinner — you have to warn him what All For One is trying to do — but you can’t with Hawks sniffing around. Spinner doesn’t come to find you until you’ve already packaged Overhaul’s severed arm for transport, when you’re in the act of calling the doctor to tell him to bring you back. “You’re not staying? I thought he was going into stasis –”

“He is. This is something else.” You try to think of what to tell Spinner, what he’ll need to know if you’re caught and taken out of the picture. There isn’t much, now that you think about it. Even if the doctor catches you, it’ll already be too late. “Listen. If anything happens to me, go to Jaku hospital. Down below. That’s where the doctor is, and the Nomus –”

“What do you mean, if something happens to you?” Spinner’s eyes widen. “Is something going to happen to you? What’s going on?”

“There’s not time. Just — if I’m not back, go there. Don’t leave Tomura there –”

You break off, coughing. Warp sludge is filling your throat. “Don’t leave him. Remind him –”

“About what?”

“Who he is.” It’s the only hint you can give. Then warp sludge chokes off your voice, and when it clears, you’re alone in the darkness beneath Jaku hospital once more.

You wait through the rest of the day. Into the night. You make the doctor hover over you as you work to extract and preserve Overhaul’s quirk factor, taking up so much time that he’s glad to leave you alone when it’s done. As soon as he’s gone, you get moving. You’re familiar with the organization of the quirk database by now, and you go straight for All For One. One original quirk, and three copies. Or so you think.

You’re pretty sure the doctor doesn’t suspect you, but if you were in his shoes, you wouldn’t trust anybody when it came to preserving Tomura’s plans. You set the original quirk factor on its glass slide on the workbench and study it for a moment. It doesn’t look like much — just three full layers of skin, peeled from the palms of All For One’s hands. Your stomach twists when you think about how agonizing it must have been to remove. All For One’s palms have holes in the center of them. You don’t remember that from the hand that closed over your face the first time you came here, but you had other things on your mind.

You set the original aside, then line up the copies alongside it. “Mocha-chan,” you say, and the Nomu appears at your side. “I need a copy of the original quirk.”

Mocha makes it for you, and you affix it onto a new slide, peeling the label off of the original and adding it to complete the picture. Then you tuck it back into the archive in the proper spot and slide it shut.

Next, you pick up a scalpel, and you start with the copies, dragging the blade of the scalpel firmly across each one. You’re not pressing hard enough to cut through the layers of skin completely, but as you test each copy, they collapse into sludge when the pressure grows too firm. You destroy each one, then turn your attention to the quirk labeled as the original. Time to find out if the doctor’s even slightly suspicious of you. If he is, there’s no way he’ll have left the original All For One quirk factor within your reach. You wouldn’t.

You cut into the peeled-away palm of All For One’s hand, biting deep enough to cut through it entirely, but it doesn’t collapse. You cut into it again, amputating the thumb, but the integrity of the quirk factor remains intact. So the doctor does trust you, then. Your heart is racing, and in spite of the fact that you have the proof you need, you continue to cut, slicing All For One’s quirk to ribbons. And when that’s done, when you’re surrounded by nothing but slivers of skin, you drop the slide to the floor and crush it under your heel.

It doesn’t feel like enough. You want to stomp on it harder, and after a second, you do. You sweep the rest of the slides off the workbench, too, shattering them, and add them to the pile of crushed glass on the ground. You imagine it’s All For One’s face that you’re stepping on, that you’re obliterating what’s left of his features with strike after strike, finishing a job that All Might couldn’t. You aren’t like Tenko. You don’t blame All Might for everything, even if you do see the flaws in heroic society, even if you do believe that the world would be better off if everything about it changed. But you do blame All Might for one thing, one thing that’s unforgivable — failing to save Tenko. If All Might had truly beaten All For One, he would never have stolen your best friend away.

It feels hypocritical to blame All Might when you failed Tenko, too, but you were just a little kid. You weren’t the one who took responsibility for saving everyone. What you’ve taken responsibility for is this — not preventing All For One from being passed to Tenko, but making sure that the piece of his master’s soul gets is as weak as possible. It’s all you can do. It’ll have to be enough, and you tell yourself that it is, that it will be. A shadow of All For One isn’t nothing, but you’re not afraid of it. If you’re by Tenko’s side, you can help him keep it at bay. And maybe if your next plan pans out —

But this plan isn’t finished yet. One thing at a time. You turn to the Nomu again. It’s been watching you silently, its eyes blank and staring. “I’m going to clean this up, you say, gesturing to the glass on the ground. The Nomu says nothing. “I need three more copies of All For One.”

The Nomu makes them for you, and you slide them into the database alongside the copy you’re passing off as the original. Then you get to work sweeping away the glass, sponging away the piles of sludge and scraps of skin, concealing the evidence of what you’ve done. There’s a weird feeling of unease in the pit of your stomach.

At first you can’t figure out what it is. But the further away you get from the destruction of All For One’s original quirk, the clearer it becomes. You’ve lied, you’ve stolen, you’ve been an accessory to kidnappings and murders. You’ve used an illegal weapon and killed someone with it. You’ve been complicit in illegal human experimentation. All of that is more than enough to put you within Kazuo’s parameters. But what you’ve just done feels different. It feels like something you can’t come back from, something that’s subverted All For One’s plans directly, something he or the doctor would happily kill you for. You took the trust the doctor had in you and twisted it into a weapon, manipulated and flattered and pretended yourself into a position to ruin everything, and then you did it without thinking twice.

You know you did the right thing. You aren’t sorry about it. You’d do it again in a heartbeat. But you can’t shake the thought that of everything you’ve done since Tenko came back into your life, this is the one that makes you feel more like a villain than anything else.

<- Chapter 22

[zeeph-containment-zone]

VAPORWAVE/SYNTHWAVE LISTENERS:

I need you all to be aware that there seems to be a massive uptick in AI generated "music" clogging up youtube. As someone who's starting to get into writing their own vaporwave music and has wanted to write vaporwave for the past decade, this really upsets me for a lot of reasons!!!!

So I'm gonna show you how to spot these AI generated mixes::

WHILE WRITING THIS BLOGPOST I LEARNED MANY OF THESE SAME IDENTIFIERS APPLY TO WEIRDCORE / AMBIENT MIXES AS WELL!!!!

1) No Tracklist

Many of the AI generated mixes have no tracklists attached to them whatsoever. In my personal opinion, this is one of the biggest red flags. Some uploaders have added "track lists" but the names of the songs are pretty nonsensical even by vaporwave standards (example: "Helicopter Fly") and have no artist credited.

2) Suspiciously Long Uploads

If you're anything like me, you probably have noticed all videos on youtube search if you type "vaporwave mix" into the search bar are 3 or more fucking hours long.

I know there's some lengthy older mixes out there (example: Aisle 420, which has become a group listening background music staple whenever my friends and I play minecraft together!) but if it's fairly new and has a really obnoxious timestamp attached to it, be wary!

3) Extremely Specific Naming Scheme

Going to crossreference back to the images in number 2, one of the many things ALL these AI channels have in common is that they title all their mixes " Ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ Ｉｎ Ｗｉｄｅ Ｔｅｘｔ ［ ＹＥＡＲ ］" Again, this is something older mixes have done before. But there's a very noticable difference between genuine mixes that incorporate a year into the title and these, especially when you look at the upload dates and how the naming scheme is extremely similar across all the channels that exhibit these patterns and AI usage.

4) Year in the Thumbnail Image

Much like Number 3, but specifcally in regards to the thumbnail image. There'll be a four digit number plastered in big text across the thumbnail. I have no idea why they all do this.

5) AI Generated Captions

Not just very likely AI generated, but also copypasta'd across every channel that's like this. Examples will speak better than explaining in text can.

Some things to note here are a weird fixation on copyright, and the phrase "Reposting This Content In Any Form is Strictly Prohibited!" being a shared factor.

6) AI Generated Visuals

This one is pretty easy to spot unless you're running youtube in a tab in the background.

7) Extremely "Samey" Sounding

So if you're like me and let youtube autoplay run while you're working, one of these may have decided to come on without you actually clicking on it. From what I've listened to when this happens, a lot of the music sounds very empty and "samey." As if you're listening to the same song for 10 minutes but it's actually all different songs. There's not much substance to any of the actual songs and also a very clear distinct lack of sampling. I don't want to include lack of sampling as it's own point, because it's entirely possible to compose music in-genre without sampling at all. However, none of these channels use samples. Not a single one, out of any of their several dozen three hour uploads.

8) Very Short Intervals Between Uploads

One of the things that made me start thinking "holy shit, are all these new playlists that're popping up AI generated?" was the upload dates. These channels will seeminly push out a new mix every couple of days, sometimes even every day.

Bro, you are NOT writing that much over that period of time.

9) Sometimes, They'll Just Admit It

youtube has also thankfully started flagging some of them with the tiny little disclaimer in the caption, which imo isn't enough seeing as they paste a whole AI generated novel in the caption half the time but at least it's something.

Channels I Can 100% Confirm Are AI:

•Retropical Records

-alts: Eternal Past (Weirdcore/Ambient) Nebula Breeze (Jazz?) and Dunes of Time (??? I can't be assed to click on any of those videos to find out, not gonna lie.)

•Utopic.Dreamer

•Luminescence

•Music Farm

•dream.surfer

•devs.fm

• FOR WEIRDCORE LISTENERS: aurora.heaven

-likely run by whoever's running utopic and dream surfer

Thank you so much for reading this through to the end. It's such a shame to see this genre go down this path and I hope we as creators can do something to offset it.

May your journey into the eternal mall be pleasant and AI-Free <3

[hsslilly-blog]

Blair, untitled, a double record // (YouTube Music)

♪♫♪ some are dead and some are living; in my life, i've loved them all

💿 DISC ONE:

1. child psychology | black box recorder // 2. empty | metric // 3. a dark congregation | the hush sound // 4. eclipse | pink floyd // 5. this fire | franz ferdinand // 6. i will, tonight | the brokebacks // 7. bird song | florence + the machine // 8. i think i'm going to kill myself | elton john // 9. misguided ghosts | paramore // 10. here comes the sun | the beatles // 11. california | joni mitchell // 12. here's where you belong | the west coast pop art experimental band

💿 DISC TWO:

13. i was an island | john-allison weiss // 14. autumn | raíssa azevedo // 15. god must hate me | catie turner // 16. body terror song | aaj // 17. hangar | 8485 // 18. california friends | the regrettes | 19. team | lorde // 20. clusterhug | i dont know how but they found me | 21. backyard // sløtface | 22. different // the academic | 23. in our bedroom after the war | stars // 24. coming of age | mxmtoon // 25. in my life | the beatles

For day two of Blair Week, I decided to explore a bit of Blair's relationship with music! This was the perfect opportunity to share their playlist too, which I hadn't done before. I'm very happy with how this one turned out; there's an entire narrative here. This playlist sounds really nice if you have a crossfade of 3 seconds between songs (on Spotify).

Music is very important to Blair, and it's central to their character. It's connected with how they interact with their friends, and how they see the world too. I think it's one of my favourite aspects about them!

Blair grew up with and around music. Music was a very important cultural factor in their small community in Appin; Blair and Colin, their older brother, were part of a traditional Scottish band for a while, and Blair learnt how to play the fiddle only so they could perform together. It didn't last for very long (they were children), but Blair cherishes those memories a lot, and it started their lifelong love for the violin.

From an early age, musical education was encouraged by their parents (by their father, mostly), and their paternal grandparents. Blair first learnt how to play the piano from their father, and later on they picked up the violin/fiddle like I mentioned. Playing instruments and listening to music was how Blair and Colin spent time with their father in the short periods he used to be at home, when he was not working. So a lot of Blair's musical taste comes from their father (you can trace the Beatles obsession back to him). The three of them were very close.

When Blair was 12, their parents decided to move from their small village of Appin to Glasgow so Blair and Colin could have better opportunities. At the same time, Blair got into St. Mary Margaret's Secondary School through a scholarship; this was a school with an excellent musical programme which would help Blair immensely with their plans of attending a conservatoire in the future. Things seemed to be going really well for them, and even with hardships (which I'll explore in a future post), they were happy to be getting formal musical education. In the first Blair Week post, I mentioned Blair also sings + plays the guitar, and it was at this institution they got this training.

After Colin's death, music stopped making sense to Blair. It just... wasn't as fun anymore to them, and they didn't see the reason in keep playing and performing and doing all that. Problem is, they still had to be involved with music at school since their education hinged on their musical scholarship. Grief attaches itself to many things in many weird ways. Being "forced" to interact with something they weren't ready yet made Blair create an aversion for music. This got worse as Blair's mother kept pressuring and guilting them into performing (and into everything else).

Having this aversion was really troubling to Blair since music was all they had, and now they had nothing. Not only that, but it was all they were. When Blair arrives in the United States in 2013, they're very confused about their identity, in many different ways, and this was one of them. If they couldn't be a musician, then what would they be? If they couldn't introduce themselves by "I'm Blair and I play the piano", then how would you even know them?

This conflict permeates Blair's entire arc in High School Story Prime (together with their other struggles with identity), and making peace with music and the space it has in their life is one of their "plots". I use the band questline to explore this, as it works really well with arc. Payton is a character that helps Blair a lot with their identity, and I love that she's the one who first approaches Blair with the idea of creating a band. The (band) is their baby. Blair agreeing to performing with other people, after so long, is an important step in their trajectory. It's also an opening (to other people, to another life, to other shades).

Another important character in Blair's journey with music is Duda! I've only talked about her once or twice, but she's a virtuoso and her friendship with Blair makes them start reconnecting with music (which, in turn, allows them to start the band with Payton). Duda is the founder of the music club and Blair gets interested in it when they help Duda with their cello.

Since Blair and music is directly related to Blair and grief (as is basically everything with them), this conflict does not see resolution until after high school. A lot happens with Blair in college, but Payton helps them through it once again. Getting the band together again, as a duo this time (since everyone is scattered around the U.S.), feels like a nice ending for a score that begun a long time ago.

Like I said, I plan on returning to Blair and music (and more) in another post in Blair Week, so there's more to say! This is the main musical post, though. I loved creating this playlist for Blair, and I hope you guys like it too! (and I'm open for asks 😈)

[squidwardisanoctopus]

Ranking different vampire scary effects

Interview with the Vampire AMC: subtle. The retractable fangs is classic and I like how subtly Other they are, in movement and appearance. Very sexy. 8/10

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: love the yellow eyes but the cheesy 90’s prosthetic work takes away from the fear factor. Perhaps a higher budget and better remastering could have saved them. The morphing to represent the true bestial nature is a great bit of lore, and I respect the lack of sexualization of the horror, but it ultimately fails to be scary enough for this to be compelling. 6/10

Vampire Diaries: weird eye bag veins fail to look properly scary or sexy. They are hampered by the need to make their sexy vampires accessible to a teen audience who may not have a horror media background and the vampires suffer for it. 3/10

True Blood: just goofy. The attempts to put the fangs front and center just looks like they have weird buck teeth, especially when they snarl and hiss like barn cats. 3/10

Midnight Mass: LOVE the eye effects and how it makes the vampires stand out in the dark, but damnit can’t we have some fangs? The Angel is more classically nosferatu-like and is properly scary, so 5/10 for a mixed bag

Sinners: NOW HERES A VAMPIRE! We’ve got the scary eye effects from midnight mass combined with the transformative elements from Buffy, even some fucked up teeth and claw-like hands that remind me of American Vampire. 10/10 for scary and sexy

Being Human UK/US: the black eyes is a cool touch and I appreciate a retractable fang, it really sells some of the inhumanity of feeding on blood. The eagle screech sound effect is goofy though. 7/10

[vixensdungeon]

While I continue my research on the druid through editions (there's a lot of stuff in 3e, dear reader), let's take a little detour into something that isn't really lore relevant, and thus won't have an effect on the development of the world through the ages, but is still interesting to weird dorks like myself.

Weapons vs. Armour

Any historian of war worth their daily salt ration will know that not every weapon is equally effective against every type of armour. So how has Dungeons & Dragons modelled that in the past? Let's find out!

As a sample scenario, we'll imagine the following: Naiviv the Medium has finally grown tired of Belladonna the Halfling Veteran's constant Lawful moralising in the form of rustic halfling sayings, and has decided to stab her companion in the back. Don't worry children! This Top 10 Anime Betrayal would never actually happen. Naiviv and Belladonna are besties, and Naiviv remains ever a friend of the halfling, like Gandalf before her.

Dungeons & Dragons

The rules of Chainmail take the type of weapon and armour used into account without any sort of optional rules needed. We simply reference the Woman-to-Halfling melee table, and cross reference dagger with leather armour. So Naiviv would roll two dice, a result of 7 or above resulting in a hit being scored. Just four more hits to take that little bugger down! Unfortunately Belladonna's dagger will need only two rolls of 6 or above to slay the treacherous magic-user.

If we're using the alternative combat system like a bunch of cowards, we have to rely on one of the supplements, Greyhawk, to simulate this. We'll note that Naiviv has an armour class of 9, while Belladonna's AC is 7. Referencing the table for weapon vs armour from Greyhawk, we see that Naiviv's dagger will receive no modifier against Belladonna's leather armour, so a roll of 12 on a twenty-sided die will be required to strike a blow of 1-4 hit points against the halfling. But against Naiviv's no armour, Belladonna receives a +2 modifer, so only an 8 is needed. I'm not liking Naiviv's chances here.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Okay, now we must convert the characters into a new edition. Fortunately this is super easy, the only major difference being the size of a fighter's hit die, which unfortunately bumps Belladonna's total up. Oh, and our intrepid magic-user is now known as Naiviv the Prestidigitator. Naiviv's armour class is now 10, while Belladonna's is 8. We once again cross reference weapon to armour type. Factoring in a +1 modifier, Naiviv requires a roll of 11 to hit Belladonna. But because of a +3, Belladonna only needs a 7 to hit Naiviv. This really feels like discrimination against robes.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition

Time for another conversion, though this time there really isn't anything to it. But alas, our girls have lost their precious level titles and should probably look into getting proper surnames. Instead of referencing an attack matrix, both of them now have a THAC0 of 20. Armour classes remain the same as before. The weapon vs armour table now only considers the weapon's damage type rather then individual weapons, which is less cumbersome but much less nuanced. So we look at the column for piercing weapons and… oh ho ho, what is this? It seems like the writers have made something of a whoopsie. Against Naiviv's dagger, Belladonna's AC drops to 8 (a 12 needed to hit), while Naiviv's AC remains 10 (a 10 needed to hit) because the table makes no mention of modifiers against no armour at all. This evens the odds a bit, though perhaps not sufficiently.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

Conversion time yet again. Naiviv is now a wizard from jump, and thanks to her constitution and getting the maximum roll on 1st level and taking Toughness which most optimisers ignore because they're making characters they don't think will have to survive level 1, she actually has hit points equal to Belladonna! There's absolutely zero consideration for weapon against armour type, so with her +0 base attack bonus Naiviv will need to roll a 12 to hit Belladonna's AC of 12, while Belladonna gets a stupid +1 base attack bonus for being a fighter and only needs a 9 to hit Naiviv's AC 10.

And there you have it. I probably could've factored in Naiviv maybe knowing mage armor but I couldn't be bothered.

[adachimoe]

PSC Eps 10 & 11 "Ah-ha, I SEES it!"

Last time: Ep 1 + Explanation, Eps 2 + 4, Ep 5, Eps 6 + 7 (no Q&A), Eps 8 + 9

Episode 10

Episode 10 was a Nanako-centric Q&A that took place at the Persona Stalker Club Collab Cafe with Nanako's voice actress, Akemi Kanda, as the guest.

Q: Does Nanako know that the bear costume and the blonde boy are both Teddie? A: People in general think that Teddie is a pretty boy who began working part-time at Junes in an animal mascot outfit. The Investigation Team sometimes talk about Shadows in front of Nanako and she doesn't know find it weird because a lot of things are weird to her at that age.

(This question was more like, "Does Nanako know that Kuma and Kumada are the same person?" Teddie's JP name is Kuma which just means bear. But when he comes out of the TV and into Junes for the first time, we find out that someone asked who he is and he replied, "Kuma da". Da is the copula (to be, i am, is, etc), so he was answering, "I'm Kuma", but "Kumada" is also a Japanese family name, so the people at Junes interpreted this as him saying his name is "Kumada". Because of this, when Teddie is outside the TV in reality and working at Junes and stuff, he goes by "Kumada". This didn't carry over in English - He's called Teddie by people, and the lines at Junes were turned into people mishearing his name as "Terry or Eddie".)

Q: During the omurice contest, Nanako says that everyone's omurice is delicious. Did she really mean that or was she just being polite? A: She calls everyone's omurice delicious, but her voice was clearly different when she tried the protagonist's, so I think she was just being polite. Q: Why does Nanako like Junes? A: Probably because where she lives, Junes is the most fun place she can go to. Also, Nanako likes the Junes commercial because kids her age like those catchy jingles with meaningless lyrics that have onomatopoeia.

Episode 11

Episode 11 was a Yukiko-centric Q&A around Christmas time with her va, Ami Koshimizu, as the guest, also in Yukiko cosplay.

Q: How did the omurice Yukiko made during the omurice contest not have any flavor? It gets wrapped in an egg, so shouldn't you at least be able to taste egg................ A: Humans can deceive their taste buds by manipulating info about their sense of sight and smell. These various factors must have come together to do something miraculous. Hopefully the Amagi Inn doesn't die with Yukiko! Q: What type of hot spring is at Yukiko's inn? What kind of benefits does it offer? Also, how much is it for 2 days / 1 night? A: The type is what's generally known as a radon spring. Radon springs have medicinal properties so that's one of the Amagi Inn's specialties. The price is based on the season, but it's also the most luxury inn around the Yasoinaba area, so the price is reasonable. Q: Yukiko was the one who took over after her mother collapsed, but her father is never mentioned. Is he still alive, or is he dead like Kanji's father? A: No, he isn't dead. But he is the manager of an old traditional inn, so he has a lot of office work and goes to meetings outside of the inn.

(My understanding for ryokans where the family home *is* the ryokan, which is the case with Yukiko's family's ryokan, is they pass mother to daughter. The wife focuses on the guests and the husband does the more clerical stuff. It's gender specific too - Even if Yukiko was a guy, he wouldn't be allowed to inherit the ryokan and would be expected to marry a woman to inherit it. Or, if he didn't marry, the family would "adopt" an adult woman as their daughter so it would still be inherited within the family. This is why Yukiko brings up her and the protagonist running the ryokan together and greeting customers in her romance Social Link.)

Stalker Club Cafe Stuff

Something from ep 10 that people may or may not find entertaining cause it's vaguely Adachi related and this blog is Adachi HQ:

One of the dishes at the Stalker Club Cafe was the "Stretchy Spaghetti with Eaten Eggplant". This menu item is based on a joke from episode 3 of PSC, specifically from the (Purposely) Misheard Lyrics Theater (called Persora - a portmanteau of Persona + Soramimi), where the English lyrics "Could turn out to be" from the Arena opening "Best Friends" was misheard in Japanese as "kutta nasubi", meaning "eaten eggplant".

During these Persora segments, sometimes the Etrian Odyssey illustrator would make doodles based on what the misheard lyrics are. And for "Could turn out to be / kutta nasubi", he drew Adachi eating Nanako's eggplant animal. These animals are left out during Obon Festival for your dead relatives to occupy. The eggplant in particular is supposed to be a cow - chonky and slow so that your relatives stay with you longer.

So yeah, this is a drawing of Adachi eating an eggplant animal (that Nanako probably left out for her mother...) based on trying to hear English lyrics as Japanese words.

At the cafe, Kanda mentions that it really looks like there's a bite missing from her eggplant, and the hosts joke about that being because of Adachi, like the illustration, then they start blaming his voice actor for this lol.

Cabbage.

Lastly, some very important info here -- the menu at the Collab Cafe included a dish called the Cabbage Cop's Simple Snack based on the cabbage dish Madono mentions during the episode 5 Q&A (cabbage, seaweed, and sesame):